Racial separation worsening disaster

When Kanye West appeared during a Katrina fundraiser and declared, bluntly, to the shock of… When Kanye West appeared during a Katrina fundraiser and declared, bluntly, to the shock of his fellow presenters, that “George Bush does not care about black people,” he ignited a racial debate that has created a divide between U.S. citizens. Within a week, blacks and whites alike could be seen wearing t-shirts that declared, “Kanye was Right.” Many believe that Kanye West’s remarks were ignorant and ill-timed, while others see it as a bold and basically true statement that was a long time coming. This debate begs the question: Is our president a racist?

A new report, released recently by a bipartisan commission selected to investigate disaster relief efforts, would say no. The report, titled “A Failure of Initiative,” accused the president of being incompetent in his appointments and insensitive in his public appearances – but not racist. The reason for this is simple: Black as well as white government officials contributed negatively to the disaster relief efforts by getting mired in bureaucracy and ignoring disaster plans already in place.

The first line of defense during a disaster is local. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Katherine Blanco botched the evacuation process in New Orleans while most other parts of the state of Louisiana were evacuated quite effectively.

It has recently been reported that Nagin ignored disaster evacuation plans drawn up by the New Orleans local government in favor of his own sporadic and ill-advised decisions. One of the many errors Nagin made was allowing a fleet of transit buses to flood, left on low ground near the levees that the mayor knew were in need of repair. These buses could have evacuated more than 12,000 citizens from the city.

Blanco and Nagin also delayed ordering a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans until 19 hours before landfall. This is inexcusable considering that, according to the National Weather Service, Nagin and Blanco were alerted of the storm’s possible severity as many as five days before it reached the New Orleans shore.

Many say that Nagin was stalled waiting for assistance from FEMA. Bush appointee Mike Brown completely failed on all aspects of this disaster. Air evacuations were late to arrive while flood damming and other emergency plans were again ignored in favor of spur-of-the-moment decision-making.

In a hearing questioning Brown on not making gasoline available to potential evacuees, Brown stated, “Congressman, FEMA is not there to supply gasoline, transportation; it is not the role of the federal government to supply five gallons of gas for every individual to put in a car to go somewhere. I personally believe that is a horrible path to go down. And while my heart goes out to people on fixed incomes, it is primarily a State and local responsibility.”

The former director also refused to answer questions regarding the air evacuations that never arrived in New Orleans. This blame game was played by all officials defending their failures on national television on the days that followed.

Besides showing that incompetence existed at all levels of government to cause the widespread neglect of people in New Orleans, this report finally lends some accountability to a blunder of the Bush administration and shines a light on the president’s blatant cronyism in the appointment of people like former FEMA director Mike Brown.

I am not in any way, shape or form defending George Bush. His ill-conceived appointments of untrained officials and neglect of scientific data about New Orleans’ levee system left many blacks in Jefferson County stranded. But many black activists will argue that this neglect is specific to blacks. This is simply not the case.

This administration is simply negligent and incompetent on many levels that affect all citizens. To call Katrina a racial issue not only insults the many whites who were neglected as well, it creates unproductive divides in the national debate. A good example of this can be found in the meticulous deconstruction of the word “refugee” and its use in the Katrina coverage. No one can deny that racism in the reporting was apparent. But criticisms of the use or misuse of one word has no base and is completely unproductive, as its intent was clearly sympathetic to the victims and not intended to belittle them.

While incompetence by the Bush administration is clear, incompetence by many government officials; black, white, male, female; contributed to this hurricane becoming more than just a natural disaster.

Instead of crying racism, many activist groups have been looking forward to reconstruction efforts. Hopefully, by not separating the American people into groups in times of great struggle, we can better work together to prevent this sort of reaction in future disasters. Pointing fingers at each other and neglecting people who need their government to work as planned will always cause great public outcry. But there is enough racism amongst Americans in everyday life; when it comes to sudden emergencies, we need to put our differences to the side and work together.